


Papa

by rebel_wren



Category: Star Wars: Rebels
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Family, Family Feels, Fluff, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Times Two!
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-29 03:08:45
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18769981
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rebel_wren/pseuds/rebel_wren
Summary: "Cham Syndulla had heard the word “papa” a million times before, but he’d never truly heard it until it came from the mouth of a tiny, light green little girl with budding lekku for the first time."





	Papa

**Author's Note:**

> This is sort of a different kind of story than I usually tend to write, but I hope you still enjoy it nonetheless!

Cham Syndulla had heard the word “papa” a million times before, but he’d never truly heard it until it came from the mouth of a tiny, light green little girl with budding lekku for the first time. Hera had said it while sitting on his lap as he finished telling her a story before bed, looking up at him with her bright eyes.

He’d smiled and kissed her forehead, swallowing the lump in his throat as his heart swelled.

“She’s going to be a daddy’s girl,” his wife had remarked as they were getting into bed. Her eyes matched their daughter’s. “I can already tell.”

Cham laughed and nodded, glowing with a father’s pride.

* * *

 

“Papa!” was what woke him up one morning, and a blur of green and brown smacked his bed, cuddling up between him and his wife. Cham chuckled and hugged his daughter, squeezing shrieking giggles out of her.

Her lekku seemed to get longer by the day, and when did she ever get so tall?

“What do you want to do today, little one?”

“I want to fly!” Hera said. Cham smiled at her, and his wife snorted next to him.

“We’ll see what we can do about that,” Cham said with a kiss to her forehead.

* * *

 

“Dad, look!”

Cham’s newer name from her caught his attention, and looked up from the holomap to see his daughter beaming proudly. Her clothes were covered in grease, and so was the droid next to her. She’d pulled him out of some Y-Wing wreckage just outside, and he’d been her project ever since.

“His name is Chopper,” Hera said. “What do you think?

The orange paint on the droid was chipped and old, but the droid itself was rolling around and moving its tiny arms, and warbling. Cham smiled at her.

“He looks great, Hera.”

He gave it a month before she got sick of that astromech’s old hardware and asked him to buy her a new droid.

* * *

 

Cham rubbed Hera’s back gently as she cried into his chest. Her sniffles and sobs were painful to hear, but there was nothing he could do to make it better. He softly kissed her tear-stained cheek, and she moved her head up to bury her face in his neck.

“I know, little one,” was all he could say, his voice wavering.

“I miss her,” Hera said through sobs. “It’s not fair, Dad.”

Cham tightened the hug and held her closely, because he didn’t know what else to do.

* * *

 

“Goodbye, Father,” were Hera’s last words to Cham before she left in her ship, with that old orange droid that somehow still kept running.

Cham was left alone. Without a son. Without a wife.

And now without a daughter.

And deep down inside, as much as he would try to deny it, Cham Syndulla knew that he could only blame himself.

* * *

 

Hera had hardly looked at Cham the entire flight. The last thing she’d said to him was a simple “Father,” as she sat in a different compartment, apart from everyone else on the mission.

He was getting along rather well with her crew, and the human man (who frankly didn’t seem all that smart to Cham based on his first introduction) seemed particularly eager to please him.

Admittedly, he reminded Cham of himself when he’d first met his father-in-law. He’d have to ask Hera about that.

He knew he wasn’t showing it, but he wanted a relationship with his daughter again. He missed her.

It almost made him feel bad about what he was planning with Numa and Gobi.

* * *

 

The holotable blinked and beeped, and Cham frowned. He’d just got back from his mission with the Rebellion, and he wasn’t expecting any calls. He cautiously turned it on, and a light blue image of Hera appeared in front of him. She offered him that smile he’d been missing for so many years.

She looked more like her mother than ever before.

“Hey, Dad,” she said.

“Hey, Hera.”

Cham’s voice shook just a bit with those two words.

A silence hung in the air for a few moments.

“I missed you,” Hera admitted quietly.

“I missed you too.”

* * *

 

Cham hugged Hera goodbye, and clung on a little too tightly. It was too close a call for him not to be extra close to her.

“Be careful, Hera,” he said.

She nodded. “I will. And sorry again about the house.”

Cham finally broke the hug and chuckled. “It’s better like that than controlled by the Empire.”

Hera nodded. “That’s a good way to look at it.”

She smiled. “Bye, Dad.”

“Goodbye, little one.”

She walked back up the ramp of her ship, joining her blind Jedi inside.

* * *

 

Cham was let in to the ship by a Lasat with a worried face and flattened ears, the same one who had called him two days earlier and told him that his daughter had lost the love of her life.

And Cham knew exactly how that felt

“She’s in her room,” the Lasat said. Cham nodded and walked through the ship, looking at the bright art all over the walls. He stopped at one room, he thought was hers, and put his hand to the door. He looked to the Lasat for confirmation, and he nodded.

Cham knocked on the door twice, and it opened a moment later. Hera’s eyes widened when she saw him.

“Dad?”

He smiled sadly at her. “Your friend called me. I’m sorry about what happened.”

She pulled him gently into her room, and sat down on the bed. Cham sat next to her, and put an arm around her.

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Hera said quietly.

“You don’t have to,” Cham replied, wrapping both arms around her for a full hug. She didn’t return the hug, but she did lean into it. They stayed like that silently for a few moments, until Hera sat up.

“Dad, there’s something else I have to tell you.”

“I’m listening.”

“I, um,” her voice was barely above a whisper, and her eyes started to water. “I’m having a baby.”

Cham’s mind immediately started to spin. “A baby?”

Hera nodded, and tears fell from her eyes. “And Kanan… Kanan is…”

Her voice broke, and she hugged Cham.

“Papa,” she said softly as she practically collapsed forward into him for the hug. Cham couldn’t tell if she really meant to say it or not.

“It will be okay,” Cham said. “I’ll help you.”

Hera nodded against him.

“I love you, little one,” he said. For the first time in too long.

“I love you too, Papa,” Hera said.

And that time, Cham knew she meant to say it.


End file.
